LOWER EXBURY

Firstly, I have a confession to make – I didn’t build ‘Lower Exbury’. It was originally built by Jo Palmer, mentored by her father and a few fellow members of the Scalefour Society, to meet a challenge to construct, within certain constraints, a layout for Railwells 2011. After a few years on the exhibition circuit, Jo was finding it difficult to commit to exhibition enquiries because of increasing demands on her time from her business. She reluctantly put the layout up for sale at Scaleforum 2015, which is where I saw it and dropped a few hints to my husband as I had a significant birthday coming up. After a short negotiation, it was purchased in late 2015.

Fictional history

There never was a railway into this corner of Hampshire. ‘Lower Exbury’ is a real place on the map, although it is only a farm and a row of cottages. Jo envisaged the railway as the South Hampshire Light Railway (SHLR), which had somehow evaded nationalisation in 1948. The date was set as July 28, 1952. I have modified this story slightly – while keeping to July 1952, but not to the specific date. I have assumed that the light railway was nationalised in 1948 and is now part of the Southern Region of British Railways.

The fictional history had the SHLR looking to extend to the Isle of Wight